Genealogia dell’attore ideale: note sull’estetica drammaturgica schilleriana e le sue fonti

An important chapter in Schiller's speculation on the concept of nature regards the verisimilitude of the artifice, and particularly of the theatrical representation. In "Kallias-Briefe", the ideal of a full stylistic maturity that can be practised in the treatment of the matter, finds a privileged expression in the figure of the actor and in his capacity of transferring his subjectivity to the interpretation of the role. The author of the essay further demonstrates how these issues are linked to the broader debate on the art of mime that interests the whole European theatrical culture in the second half of the 18th Century, which, in Germany, turns around the figures of Ekhof, Schröder and Iffland

Marco Benoît Carbone, Tentacle erotica. Orrore, seduzione, immaginari pornografici

Review of the book Tentacle erotica. Orrore, seduzione, immaginari pornografici“Mimesis Media/Eros. Sessualità, tecnologia, rappresentazioni” è la collana diretta da Giovanna Maina e Federico Zecca, due giovani studiosi che, assieme ad Enrico Biasin (Porno espanso, Mimesis, 2011, Porn after Porn, Mimesis International, 2014), hanno avuto il merito di “sdoganare” i porn studies in Italia e, soprattutto, di averlo fatto in una maniera tale da renderli un componente di primo livello del dibattito scientifico, grazie alla collaborazione con studiosi internazionali e a un attento e competente lavoro su categorie che fanno parte oramai da qualche anno del panorama culturale contemporaneo. I workshop sulla pornografia organizzati all’interno delle attività del FilmForum di Udine e Gorizia sono parte integrante e creativa di un laboratorio che in breve tempo ha scalfito le rigide barriere disciplinari dell’accademia italiana coinvolgendo studiosi di discipline e campi diversi

Negative mode nanostructure-initiator mass spectrometry for detection of phosphorylated metabolites

The chemical complexity of the metabolome requires the development of new detection methods to enlarge the range of compounds detectable in a biological sample. Recently, a novel matrix-free laser desorption/ionization method called nanostructure-initiator mass spectrometry (NIMS) [Northen et al., Nature 449(7165):1033-1036, 2007] was reported. Here we investigate NIMS in negative ion mode for the detection of endogenous metabolites, namely small phosphorylated molecules. 3-Aminopropyldimethylethoxysilane was found to be suitable as initiator for the analytes studied and a limit of detection in the tens of femtomoles was reached. The detection of different endogenous cell metabolites in a yeast cell extract is demonstrate

Borders and the politics of space in late medieval Italy: Milan, Venice and their territories in the fifteenth century

This work is about medieval borders, about the culture and interactions by which they were shaped (the Politics of Space), and about the political communities which they bounded (Milan, Venice and their Territories). Its analysis centres on the long fifteenth century and particularly on the making of a new frontier between the Duchy of Milan and the Republic of Venice. Following decades of war, this process paved the way for a revival of economic and cultural connections across the region, and for the establishment of a political geography which was to remain virtually unchanged throughout early modernity. In contrast to traditional treatments of pre-modern borders, this thesis takes an all-encompassing approach to the topic, charting how borders were conceptualised (Chapter 1), negotiated (Chapter 2), disputed (Chapter 3), delimited (Chapter 4), crossed (Chapter 5), recorded (Chapter 6) and mapped (Chapter 7). To accomplish this, a wide range of sources, drawn from twenty different libraries and archives, is employed: from theoretical treatises to pragmatic records, from written chronicles to cartographic visualisations, from notarial documents to official correspondence. As a whole, the thesis makes three contributions. First of all, it demonstrates that medieval borders were not always vague zones of contact and conflict, nor were they just porous and muddled lines. In late medieval Italy, borders were in fact precisely located, minutely monitored and widely understood. Secondly, it develops a new methodological framework for understanding pre-modern modalities of territorial control, of which borders were but the material markers and symbolic expressions. That framework is the politics of space: the ensemble of political exchanges and social activities which underpinned and sometimes thwarted the assertion of territoriality. The third and final contribution is to the debate surrounding the paradigm of the territorial state in Italy, which this work challenges by deconstructing its borders and revealing its true spatial fabric.</p

Venice’s Terraferma Expansion and the Negotiation of Territories in Late Medieval Italy

For much of Italy, the first half of the Quattrocento was a transformative period. As fewer and fewer states came to expand their dominions over larger and larger spaces, the interstices between them were eventually filled up and the polities of the peninsula put in direct competition with each other. In the north, this process brought the Republic of Venice and the Duchy of Milan into conflict over eastern Lombardy – namely the cities and territories of Bergamo, Brescia and Crema. Once the Venetians were finally able to wrest these areas from the Visconti’s grasp, the frontier between two dominions was fundamentally shifted and the political geography of the region redesigned. It was but the final step towards the establishment of Venice’s Terraferma state. The initial product of a larger investigation into the spatial fabric of late medieval Italy, the present article considers the conflicts and peace-making efforts through which Milan and Venice negotiated these profound changes. It does so by examining the text of well-known treaties (such as those of Ferrara and Lodi) alongside several other records from both Milanese and Venetian archives. This is to shed light on the proceedings through which territories were annexed and frontiers moved in late medieval Italy, while also uncovering the range of actors involved, and the series of principles and techniques they adopted to accomplish their goals

Borders and the politics of space in late medieval Italy: Milan, Venice and their territories in the fifteenth century

This work is about medieval borders, about the culture and interactions by which they were shaped (the Politics of Space), and about the political communities which they bounded (Milan, Venice and their Territories). Its analysis centres on the long fifteenth century and particularly on the making of a new frontier between the Duchy of Milan and the Republic of Venice. Following decades of war, this process paved the way for a revival of economic and cultural connections across the region, and for the establishment of a political geography which was to remain virtually unchanged throughout early modernity. In contrast to traditional treatments of pre-modern borders, this thesis takes an all-encompassing approach to the topic, charting how borders were conceptualised (Chapter 1), negotiated (Chapter 2), disputed (Chapter 3), delimited (Chapter 4), crossed (Chapter 5), recorded (Chapter 6) and mapped (Chapter 7). To accomplish this, a wide range of sources, drawn from twenty different libraries and archives, is employed: from theoretical treatises to pragmatic records, from written chronicles to cartographic visualisations, from notarial documents to official correspondence. As a whole, the thesis makes three contributions. First of all, it demonstrates that medieval borders were not always vague zones of contact and conflict, nor were they just porous and muddled lines. In late medieval Italy, borders were in fact precisely located, minutely monitored and widely understood. Secondly, it develops a new methodological framework for understanding pre-modern modalities of territorial control, of which borders were but the material markers and symbolic expressions. That framework is the politics of space: the ensemble of political exchanges and social activities which underpinned and sometimes thwarted the assertion of territoriality. The third and final contribution is to the debate surrounding the paradigm of the territorial state in Italy, which this work challenges by deconstructing its borders and revealing its true spatial fabric.</p

Intermedialità e Kulturkritik: la ricezione di Sade in Peter Weiss e Pier Paolo Pasolini

Peter Weiss’s play "Marat/Sade" can be considered as the most important outcome of an aesthetic reflection based not only on an ideological conflict but on a medial experimentation as well. The Marquis de Sade and the dramaturgical “translation” of his philosophy are part of Weiss’s complex considerations about the relationship between word and image, particularly as they are developed in the essay "Laokoon oder über die Grenzen der Sprache" (1965). A sphere where word and visual representation merge, theatre thus becomes the crucial element of an aesthetics based on an articulate dialectical structure: de Sade’s “bildhafte[s] Denken” ("Anmerkungen zum geschichtlichen Hintergrund unseres Stückes" [1963]) finds its tangible fulfillment on the stage. Pasolini’s confrontation with de Sade occurs in a late phase of his artistic production in which the “visual representation” of the latter’s nihilistic ideology is part of his aesthetical experiment through cinema ("Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma" [1975]). The paths they trace as multimedia artists – Weiss from cinema to literature, Pasolini from literature to cinema – evolve along a common line: Sade’s literary work and philosophy are for them a congenial ground to exercise, by way of innovative medial formats, a radical critique of western ideology and culture